


Wherever It's Snowing

by Marasa



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Anxiety, Dissociation (referenced), Flirting, Gaming, Loneliness, M/M, Matt being in Toronto gives me major Scott Pilgrim vibes, Mello and Matt Live, Multi, Pining, this happens about five years after the Kira case, wammy kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-10-25 20:21:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20730194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marasa/pseuds/Marasa
Summary: The cynical part of Near wants to say it’s a way to keep an eye on them, them being those two that had fallen away, left Wammy’s and fled all across the globe in their own pursuit of success and happiness.Whether or not they had found it was up for debate.





	Wherever It's Snowing

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic, Wammy's is based in Japan.

It’s a wonder they’ve maintained this stupid little tradition.

The cynical part of Near wants to say it’s a way to keep an eye on them, them being those two that had fallen away, left Wammy’s and fled all across the globe in their own pursuit of success and happiness. Whether or not they had found it was up for debate.

It’s only five in the afternoon when Near tells the task force to go home.

“But, sir,” one of the newer detectives says, “we haven’t finished reading through the records the police sent over today.”

“Look down there.” Near points out the north glass wall. It’s early evening but the storm clouds are thick with imminent snowfall and bar most sunlight from hitting the streets. 

Far down below, Tokyo’s working class bustle out from their work buildings and into the weekend, all of them running headfirst through the cold, clutching at their scarves and holding their coats shut. 

“That could be you,” Near says. “It'd be wise to leave now before the snow hits.”

And Near knows it will, knows it as certainly as he knows the second he picks up the nearby game controller, turns on the TV and logs into his gaming profile, that an invitation will be waiting there for him.

The officers nod with rushed thanks and leave out of the main office which has unofficially become Near’s living space for the past four months. 

He used to work in the office two floors below but he prefers this space much better. There’s three couches and a kitchen, and most importantly, a large television.

He settles back against the white cushions once they're all gone. He picks up the remote and turns on his gaming console, the screen glowing a soothing aqua before leveling out into the familiar home screen. 

A chime sounds as a message rolls down from the top right corner of the television.

_ Invitation from Archangel to join ‘Escape from the Haunted Wood.’ _

Near selects, ‘Accept.’

Immediately, familiar voices filter out of the speakers standing tall on either side of the television. And Near would have never thought he would spend actual money on expensive upgrades for a piece of technology he had previously deemed worthless. 

He’s grateful he did, though, because now they amplify two voices in perfect sound, one voice contained to each speaker, one at his left, the other to his right, so crisp and clear it would seem their owners were sitting on either cushion beside him.

“What took you so long?” Mello says. “Another ‘tough’ case?”

That’s a jab at him. An obvious one, and Near expects nothing less as a greeting from him.

Mello’s work is always the most important work to Mello, always has been and always will be. Near’s never been the one to try and convince Mello of his work’s importance but still he says, “No.”

Mello is still talking though, and Matt doesn’t do his usual interruption to inform him that Near is talking. Near scans the cushions, floor, quickly grabs his headset from the table and slips it on his head, no qualms about it messing up his hair when he wouldn’t be seeing anyone else for the rest of the night.

“No,” he repeats, goes to say how his team wanted to stick around, decides against it out of… fear? He can’t quite place why he keeps so much of himself hidden from them. 

“Whatever, I don’t care,” Mello says. “Let’s play.”

Near enters the game lobby to find only two other characters in it. One wears all black and a wallet chain. The other, a pair of tinted lenses and a mop of blue hair. Near wonders if Matt’s dyed his hair again. He doesn’t ask.

The screen blinks to black.

_ Entering the Haunted Wood. Don’t Stay Too Long. _

_ Match Starts In... _

_ 3\. _

_ 2\. _

_ 1\. _

“Let’s go!”

Matt’s avatar speeds away from the campfire they’re crowded around. Mello leaves without so much of a word of where he’s beginning the puzzle of their escape. Near heads West.

It’s nice to drift into a world like this. Never mind the serial killer stalking them through the trees. In the world on the screen, there’s no code to crack, no monster to unmask. Just a single goal: Survive.

“Where are you?” Mello asks.

“You asking me or Near?”

“I’m asking Near.”

“Okay, say that next time.”

“Say what?”

“Say, ‘Near.’”

“I’m behind the cabin you were just in,” Near answers.

“Okay, thank you.”

“Thank you, who?” Matt asks.

“What?”

“Who are you thanking?”

“Not you, dumbass!”

“Well you forgot to say, ‘Near,’ so I wasn’t sure.”

“Are you this fucking stupid or are you trying to get a rise out of me?”

“Aww, is it working?”

The smile in Matt’s voice is so clear, Near can practically see it. It’s somewhere behind a wisp of smoke, deep in Near’s memory.

“Where are you, Mello?” Matt asks.

“I just passed you.”

“I meant where are playing from.”

“Oh.” A pause and Near thinks for a second he won’t answer but then Mello says, “Austria.”

The clouds are fluffier outside, darkening in their gray shade. The dark of night befalls Near’s own avatar as he wanders alone down a hiking trail leading to the lake. When he gets too nervous, he flashes a white beam from the flashlight in his hand and then the night is erased in stark light.

“I came from Amsterdam like four days ago or something,” Mello adds as an afterthought. “I can’t remember exactly.”

“I was there two months ago,” Matt says.

“No shit.”

“Yeah, it was cool. Amsterdam, I mean. I’m in Toronto now. I’ve been here for a little more than two weeks. It’ll be three on Wednesday, I think.”

“Doing what?” Near murmurs into his microphone. 

Because he gets Mello’s ways, what with him heading an underground criminal organization. It’s not the big time; Near would have to shut it down if it was, but it’s menial shit that Near thinks makes Mello feel more important and influential than he really is.

Matt on the other hand doesn’t have a clear motivation for his globetrotting. He has the smarts, of course he does, but outside of that, he’s never had a clear goal in his life.

“Just hangin’ out,” Matt answers like it’s no big deal. 

Near stumbles upon a toolbox in the woods. He opens it. He collects one hammer, one battery and three pieces of ‘scrap.’ He thinks a crafting element is available in this game but he isn’t sure if you can truly make anything out of unwanted rubbish.

“Are you coming back to Japan?” Near asks before he can catch himself.

“Why? You miss me?”

_ I just don’t understand _, Near thinks but does not say aloud.

“Where are you, Near?” Matt asks.

“Tokyo.”

“Still?”

“I like it here.”

“Well eat some takoyaki for me. All I’ve had out here is shitty diner food. Like, waffles and chicken fried steak.”

“That sounds like America,” Mello says.

“Eh, it’s America-lite. Near, over here.”

Near’s avatar runs into a nearby house. Matt’s avatar is already standing in the living room there. He hands him a baseball bat. Near takes it, drops his hammer in the process, accidentally presses another button on his controller and makes his character crouch down quickly before bolting up again. 

Matt’s avatar does the same in solidarity before running out the door.

“I think I’m ready to leave Canada,” Matt says. “Life here’s so strange. I saw an actual moose on my walk to the gas station. It was just me and this moose and, and… I don’t know. It was weird.”

“Why was it weird?" Mello says. "Was the moose talking shit?”

“No, I just... felt off. I still feel kinda off. That night I felt like the cigarettes, the cold, the moose, all of it was a hyper-real fantasy or something. I was a spectator in this weird matrix. I might have just been hella tired.”

It’s quiet for a second after that. In the distance, Near can see Matt’s avatar setting a tripwire trap between two oak trees. For some reason, he can’t make himself form the words, _ “That sounds like a dissociative episode, most likely triggered by your harmful tendency to alienate yourself from others.” _

He knows because it happens to him too.

“Plus, the place I’m crashing in has shitty heating and I’m kinda sick and tired of wearing my shoes to sleep so my toes don’t fall off.”

Mello doesn’t say anything, settles for instead, “And how’s life for you, Near? In _ glorious _Tokyo?”

Matt gives an appreciative hum in reference to the clear labeling of who his question was intended for.

“Which aspect of it?” 

“Dunno. Whichever you’re willing to talk about.”

“I doubt you really care.”

“Fuck you.”

“Oi, easy...” Matt drawls and Near hears the faint tell-tale hiss of a cigarette’s cherry burning on his next inhale. 

“It’s getting colder here,” Near offers after a minute of focused gameplay. “I think it’ll snow soon.”

“It’s snowing over here,” Mello says. “Or it was when I went out to get dinner.”

“Ooh, what’d you get?” Matt asks.

“Fast food borger,” and Mello pronounces ‘burger’ in that silly way he used to back at Wammy’s House for a laugh. Near actually smiles a small smile but doesn’t realize it. “Damn, I’m tired of the food here. I’ve been having to eat fast food because I’m just so sick of the other food.”

“I think Near’s the only one eating well. What’d you have for dinner?”

“Who are you asking?” Mello mocks in a dramatically oafish voice, and that makes Near’s cheeks hurt with the intensity of his smile and then it’s gone as soon as it came but the good feeling remains.

“I haven’t eaten dinner.”

“Boo,” Matt chides, then, “Please eat something.”

“I feel bad ordering out when the weather’s like this.”

“It isn’t snowing, right?” Mello asks.

“The wind is picking up. And it’s getting darker. I’ll have to settle for leftovers from yesterday. I think I have some curry."

“Japan’s weather is so finicky," Mello grumbles. "Or that’s how I remember it, anyway. I can’t remember the last time it snowed when I was in Tokyo.”

_ You haven’t been in Tokyo in a very long time, _ Near wants to say but doesn’t.

“Do you have the car keys?” Matt asks. “Who has the car keys?”

“I do,” Mello says.

“You can drive us out of here?”

“Don’t doubt me.”

Matt makes a non-committal sound like, ‘_ Yeah, of course not.’ _

The game’s been going on for a while and the tech knows it. The killer’s programmed to up the anti around this time. They should probably start in the direction of the most efficient way of escape.

Mello gasps quietly, whispers, “You motherfucker.” Then, “He’s over by the lake.”

“He’s by the car?” Near asks.

“Lurking around it, yeah.”

“Scare him. With fireworks.”

“I don’t have fireworks.”

“They’re in the boat shed.”

“That’s too close to him!” and Mello is whispering like the killer can hear him.

“It’s a risk you’ll have to take if you want to incapacitate him.”

“C’mere and help, then.”

This is the only place Mello will ask for help. Near sets his sight on Mello’s yellow dot on the compass in the bottom right hand corner. He sees Matt’s red dot moving his way too. 

Now by the lake, they weave and assemble traps amongst the leaves and the killer wanders off in the direction of the sound of one of Matt’s traps slamming closed around the breeze and the three of them race down the hillside to the car, each of them taking to a particular area that needs repair.

Never during their upbringing did they ever feel like brothers, don’t feel even remotely related now. They know each other too well to be strangers but they’re so fractured from one another that it’d be easier if they didn’t know each other at all.

Near, for some reason, doesn’t like that idea.

Ultimately, they’re just a few people too smart for their own good and enough issues to go around more than thrice.

Do nights like tonight constitute them as friends?

“We’re a fine-oiled machine,” Matt commends when each of them are doing an individual and necessary task to repair and fuel the car.

“Like butter,” Mello says.

Near hums.

They could have achieved a lot together. L surely thought so.

Now they’ll never know what could have been possible.

“I have a really stupid idea,” Matt says as Near just finishes up filling the gas tank.

“So a usual idea for you,” Mello says.

Matt barks a wilted, ‘_ har har’ _then says, “What if we met up? I mean, I’m ready to skip outta this frigid hellhole. You’re sick of the food in Austria, Mello, or lack thereof. Near, it’s been forever since you took some time. The three of us could easily just… meet up for a bit, y’know?”

Silence.

A brief suspicion raises within Near. Is this some elaborate plan to get him to leave Japan so they can wreak havoc in his domain, they being those two who left Wammy’s like it was no big deal? Do they want to infiltrate his building, steal classified documents, ruin his work? Do they hate him enough to plot against him in such a convoluted way?

But Near recognizes something hopeful in Matt’s voice and he hears the flick of a lighter, the whisper of a flame, the burn of paper on his side of the line and Near’s noticed Matt smokes substantially more when he’s nervous.

“What makes you think I want to see either of your stupid asses?” Mello says, his avatar finishing up the last minigame to fix the broken car engine.

“What else you got better to do?”

“Well, you know I can swing it. Near’s the one you have to convince.”

“Near,” Matt says, “you in?”

The streets outside the window are mostly empty. A few single snowflakes are blown past the windows. Near’s introduced back into the real world and the December sun has long since set, darkness now descending.

“You’ll meet up anyway if I don’t come.”

“Probably, yeah," Matt says, "but I invited both of you.”

“Invited us where?”

“We could go somewhere warm! Southern Hemisphere. No snow down there.”

“I like the snow,” Mello murmurs and he sounds so much like Near for a second there.

“Me too,” Near mumbles and his character isn’t even moving anymore. He’s standing there, steady and brave with a baseball bat in his grip, but in reality, he’s brought his knees up to his chest and he’s balled up his fist in his sleeve, staring ahead of himself.

“We’ll stay up here, then,” Matt says. “Germany?”

“How about Denmark? I've been close, but never gone."

“Sure, I’ve never been either. Near?”

Words form in his throat but it takes a brief pause for him to open his mouth and utter them into the microphone hanging close to his mouth.

“I don’t live like you. I’m not like you two.”

He awaits the backlash, the approaching fight in response he knows they’ll give him but he’s not sorry. He just doesn’t work like that. He can’t just, disappear like they do. He has responsibilities and a duty to deliver justice. This is his life. Here.

“I’m doing actual work and you two are… wasting time.” Near sets aside the controller without really thinking about it. He picks at his fingernails. “It’s okay to come home, you know.”

“‘Home’?” Mello spits. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I mean where you grew up.”

“I grew up in the real fucking world, Near. You’re still doing L’s petty work.”

“I’m helping people.”

“Do you help yourself? Ever?”

“Why would I?”

He knows what it sounds like, how it smells suspiciously of self-negligence, but he didn’t mean to word it like that. What he means is, is… 

What does he mean?

“Near.” It’s Matt. “It’s not… selfish. To take care of yourself. To do what you want.”

Near crosses his arms atop his knees, game controller still on the cushion beside him. 

“You want me to abandon my cases. You want me to abandon the force. The people I swore to help. You want me to abandon the world.”

“‘The world.’” Mello scoffs but it sounds a little shaky. Worried, maybe. “Do you hear yourself?”

Matt continues without any acknowledgment of his interrupter.

“I want you to take a healthy break from thinking that it’s all resting on your shoulders. It won't fall apart.”

“But that’s definitely a possibility. It could happen. And if it does...” Near’s fingers bite into his biceps. _ “Matt…” _

“I’m right here,” and Matt says that so easily despite being half a world away.

“Without it,” Near whispers, “without it, what is there?”

“A place in Denmark. With us.” His voice is low and warm and the brief, Near appreciates it when his body shivers with a cold chill. “We’re not asking you to commit a crime. We’re not asking you to disappear for the rest of your life. We’re asking you to forget the world for a short, limited amount of time and just… reunite with us.”

“Is that what we’re doing?” Mello asks.

“I want to see you guys again. Do you not want to see each other?”

“Of course I want to see you, Mail.” 

Oh, and it’s so soft and so full of yearning. It’s complex and layered and it carves a hole in Near’s chest. 

“Near,” Mello says, “it’s your call.” Then, “Car’s ready.”

Near picks up the controller to his right. His avatar slips into the backseat. Mello and Matt take the front. The engine turns. The headlights blink on.

“Slow and steady,” Matt whispers. “The driving controls are slippery.”

“I know, I know. Now keep your eyes open for this son of a bitch.”

Near should be swiveling his camera around, should be looking out for the killer threatening to bar their escape. But his thumbs remain still on the joysticks as he stares through the television and into a fantasy of the future.

It’s him, and Matt, and Mello. In Denmark. Near’s never been to Denmark and he gets a little nervous when he’s in a new place but for some reason he isn’t too worried because they’re with him. There’s no sun but there is a layer of untouched snow blanketing the sidewalks. He can smell the smoke rising from Matt’s parted lips, can hear the crunch of ice beneath Mello’s black boots. They’re by a frozen lake, in a snowy park, in a hotel suite over a tray of room service while the television murmurs a foreign language none of them understand.

And he wants to serve the public, but he wants this more, deserves this.

“I’ll come,” Near whispers.

“Really?” Matt asks.

Near makes an affirmative buzz of his lips. He doesn’t want to speak; he doesn’t trust the terrified, excited, tremble of his own voice.

Mello’s doing fine driving the car through the forest. The killer stands far ahead of them but he doesn't once shake.

“Fuck him up!”

“Oh fuck!”

Mello swerves the car to the left and accelerates. He weaves through the trees and the speakers are shaking with the chorus of their shared anxiety. It’s a miracle they manage to not crash into any tree on the way to the main road.

They breathe a collective sigh of relief when Mello pulls onto the pavement. He’s going faster now and the car wobbles but Near doesn’t doubt his capability. For two people he hasn’t seen in forever, for some reason he trusts them.

The fog parts down the road. Revealed, an escape from the Haunted Wood. They barrel through the edge of the map and disappear into the night without dying.

_ You’ve Escaped! _

“We did it,” Matt says, exhaling deeply.

“All thanks to me.”

“Thank you, Mello.”

“Good job, Mello.”

“Both of you owe me a drink once we get together.”

And it’s a promise.

Near looks to the movement outside the window. Fragile pieces of snow flurry through the air. They fall onto the street below and sprinkle the glowing streetlights. It’s a gentle affair between the snow and the wind and Near is lucky enough to witness it.

“Mello?” he says.

“Yeah?” he answers just as soft.

“It just started snowing.”

“Nice,” Mello says and the silence that follows for once is comfortable. They’ll have plenty to talk about when they see each other but for now, they enjoy the snowfall in their respective cities.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr: @marasamoon


End file.
